Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, such as a recording apparatus, having a moving member, such as a carriage, configured to convey a recording head.
Description of the Related Art
In a recording apparatus, a recording head is mounted on a carriage, and ink is discharged from the recording head while the carriage guided by a guide rail (or a guide shaft) reciprocates, whereby recording is performed on a recording medium. The guide rail (or the guide shaft) has a sliding surface, and, during the reciprocal movement of the carriage, a sliding portion of the carriage held in contact with the sliding surface slides. Since the width in the conveyance direction in which recording can be performed on a recording medium in a single reciprocal operation is limited, it is necessary for the carriage to reciprocate over and over again.
In many recording apparatuses, a lubricant is applied to the guide rail (or the guide shaft) in order to mitigate the wear of the sliding portion of the carriage. In FIG. 9, a sliding portion support portion 102a is provided on the back surface of the carriage. A sliding portion 114 is formed on the sliding portion support portion 102a to protrude therefrom. Dashed arrows 130 in FIG. 9 indicate the movement of the lubricant on a sliding surface (not illustrated) of the guide rail when the sliding portion 114 slides on the sliding surface of the guide rail. When the carriage moves in a scanning direction, the sliding portion 114 moves to push aside the lubricant on the sliding surface. Then, the lubricant on the sliding surface of the guide rail (or the guide shaft) is squeezed out of the region where the sliding portion is held in contact with the sliding surface, resulting in deterioration in the effect of the lubricant.
In view of this, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-334853 discusses a construction in which a carriage slides on a guide shaft in order to sufficiently attain the effect of a lubricant. The lubricant is scraped off at a bearing portion of the carriage and is guided to a specific portion, thereby achieving an improvement in terms of the effect of the lubricant.
As described above, in connection with the construction in which the carriage slides on the guide shaft, there has been proposed a technique for achieving an improvement in terms of the effect of the lubricant. However, in the construction in which the carriage slides on the guide rail, the sliding portion pushes the lubricant out of the sliding range as a result of the reciprocal movement of the carriage. Due to the configuration of the sliding portion, it is rather difficult to gather the lubricant pushed out of the sliding range. The result that the consumption of the lubricant is aggravated leads to an insufficiency of the effect of a lubricant, making the sliding portion subject to wear.